Deadlock

by Catherine Coulter

  Pippa whispered, “Hello, Ronald.”

  They walked quietly across the deserted street, eased up to the kitchen window, and watched Mrs. Trumbo hand him a cup of coffee. Ronald Pomfrey had pulled off his watch cap, and he looked like his photos, but there was something different. He looked exhausted and scared. He sat hunched over, cradling the coffee in his hands, and sipped.

  “We need to get closer. Maybe we can hear what they’re saying.” They eased in as close as they could get and heard Ronald speaking. “It’s him, Wilde,” she whispered against his ear, “I recognize his voice.”

  They pressed closer, heard Ronald Pomfrey say, “I got another text from her today, Mom. She’s more pissed than ever. She’s losing it.”

  Mrs. Trumbo’s hand tightened on her son’s shoulder. “What does the evil witch want you to do now?”

  Ronald raised exhausted eyes to her face, gave an ugly laugh. “What does it matter, Mom? I’m screwed, no way around it. And whether Marsia throws us under the bus or not, when they find out what I’ve done, it will be all over. I’m only sorry I’ve pulled you down with me.” He set his coffee cup on the kitchen table, lowered his face to his hands. Was he crying? Then he suddenly raised his head. “We should have faced up to what happened, never paid her a cent, ever.” His words clogged in his throat. “A couple hundred bucks a month was never going to be enough for her anyway.”

  Mrs. Trumbo was rubbing his shoulders with her big hands. “What’s done is done, Ron. Always, in the back of my mind, I knew she’d turn up again. She’s vicious, relentless, but agonizing about it won’t help. Show me that text message. I need to know what she wants you to do.”

  Ronald pushed his phone at her like it was a snake that had bitten him. “Here, I don’t want to read it again. She’s not going to stop, Mom, not until Agent Savich and his family are dead, or all of this blows up on us.”

  Ronald swiped his gloved fingers over his tear-shined eyes. “This is all my fault. She wouldn’t have been there if not for me. I thought she loved me, believed in me. And she was so beautiful, you thought so, too. I shouldn’t have let any of this happen. I’m sorry, Mom, so very sorry.”

  Mrs. Trumbo leaned down and hugged him to her chest as she read the text message. Then she kissed the top of his head and lightly stroked her fingers over his face. “This isn’t your fault, Ron. You couldn’t have known how twisted she was.” She sucked in her breath. “What she wants this time can’t, won’t, happen. We have to deal with this some other way.”

  Ronald looked up at his mother and said in a voice deadened with disgust, “She wants me to go after the Savich kid, leave him in an isolated place. She knows he’d die, Mom. It’s winter, and it’s cold. He would die, and it would be because of me. She wants Savich to go searching for him. She wants him to find his son dead.”

  The words hung between them. Mrs. Trumbo said very precisely, “You won’t do that.” She gave the phone back to her son, straightened over him, and threw back her shoulders. She looked like a Valkyrie.

  “I’ve thought about this, Mom, and what I need to do is run, disappear. If I don’t do anything else for her, they might not be able to put all of it together. You might still be safe.”

  “If you run, we’d lose each other. I’d be alone. But you’re right, Ron. This has to stop. Somehow. Your leaving might be the only way to keep you safe. But you’re not going to be driving anywhere tonight. It’s too cold, and I’m hoping we can think of some other way to deal with this. I made up a bed in the basement. Go downstairs and get some sleep. I’ll wake you before anyone else is up.”

  They watched Ronald slowly rise, hug his mother close, whisper something, and walk, shoulders hunched, from the kitchen.

  Mrs. Trumbo pulled off her apron, took her son’s coffee cup to the sink, methodically rinsed it out, and set it in the drainer. She looked around the kitchen and turned off the light.

  Pippa and Wilde looked at each other. “I don’t know what I expected to hear,” Wilde said, “but it certainly wasn’t all that. Time to go say hello.”

  57

  Pippa said quietly from the front doorway, “Mrs. Trumbo, you don’t want to go upstairs. That’s right, turn around.”

  Pippa walked to the bottom step and looked up at Mrs. Trumbo. She stared down at them, no expression on her face, but like her son, she looked exhausted. Her voice was flat, indifferent. “Oh, it’s you, Agent Cinelli, Chief Wilde. I’m tired and I don’t wish to speak to either of you tonight. Perhaps tomorrow. Please go. Good night.”

  “I can’t, ma’am. I’m staying here in the honeymoon suite. Listen to me, you need to speak to us, Mrs. Trumbo. We’ll go in the living room. Chief Wilde will bring Ronald up.”

  Mrs. Trumbo closed her eyes a moment, then said, “How did you know he was here? No, never mind that. It’s not important.” She straightened her shoulders again. The Valkyrie was back. “Let me say right away: I was behind everything. Leave my son out of this.”

  Pippa said again, “Let’s go into the living room.”

  They heard Wilde’s voice, a muffled shout from the basement, the sounds of a scuffle, of furniture falling. Pippa started to go down, but no, Wilde didn’t need her. In a moment, he and Ronald came up the stairs, Wilde’s hand flat against Pomfrey’s back.

  Pippa and Wilde sat across from mother and son. “I will tell you again, Ronald had nothing to do with anything. It was me, only me, not Ronald.”

  Pippa studied them for a moment. “Mr. Pomfrey, did you hit me on the head, tie me up, and steal my phone and gun, my ID?”

  He swallowed, nodded.

  Pippa said, “Thank you for not lying. Just so you know, you left your thumbprint on one of the shelves at the abandoned grocery store. Now, we know you were in your final year at MICA when you met Marsia Gay.”

  He shot a look toward his mother, started to shake his head.

  Wilde said quietly, “We heard your conversation with your mother. It’s time for the truth.”

  “All right, Ron, tell them,” Mrs. Trumbo said.

  Ronald looked beaten down. He slowly nodded. “Marsia and I met at MICA. How do you know about Marsia?”

  “Chief Wilde and I have done a bit of research,” Pippa said. “Now I want both of you to tell us what happened at that cabin in the Poconos the night Major Trumbo died.”

  Ronald’s eyes blazed. He clenched his hands. “It was my fault, not my mom’s.”

  “What was your fault, exactly?”

  He licked his dry lips, looked down at his clasped hands. “Mom?”

  “Go ahead, Ron,” Mrs. Trumbo said, and took his hand in hers. “We’ve lived with this nightmare for too long, and you can’t run away anymore. It needs to be over.”

  Ronald raised his head and studied his mother’s face. He finally nodded. “Mom and Major Trumbo—he demanded everyone call him Major—sometimes visited my cabin in the Poconos, near a little town, Cold Bluff. Marsia and I had stayed at the cabin a number of times. She was with me on that visit as well. Saturday evening, Marsia and I drove into Cold Bluff to get some groceries for Mom to make her stew. We came back earlier than expected. I heard Major Trumbo yelling curses at my mother, calling her filthy names. He sounded like a snake, hissing out his insults. I heard my mother scream. I saw Major Trumbo through the window, hitting her with his fists. Mom was fighting him, but she was losing. She got one good shot—her knee in his groin—but it didn’t slow him. The front door was locked. I didn’t have the key, so I broke a window and crawled in. He was bigger than me, lots bigger, and stronger, even though he was old. He started yelling at me, I was a pansy with my silly little girl looms. I was a disgrace. A beautiful woman like Marsia deserved better than a little candy cane like me, he said, maybe he should be the one to have her. I jumped him, but he threw me off and hit me, kept hitting me. Mom tried to get him off me, but he knocked her away. He left me dazed on the floor and went after Mom again. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and came flying back in. I stabbed h
im in the back while he was straddling her, his big hands around her neck, choking her.”

  58

  “Where was Marsia during the fight?”

  Ronald was looking down at his hands, rubbing them against each other. “She was standing in the middle of the room, in shock, I thought at the time. She hadn’t tried to help me, to help my mother. She hadn’t said a word, but again, I blamed it on shock. All of us were in shock. I remember standing over him, rubbing my neck and wondering why there wasn’t all that much blood. I’d thought there’d be fountains of blood when you killed someone. And he was dead. Good and dead.

  “Everything stopped, like we were in a bubble, no world outside, all the horror inside, right in front of us. We all stood there staring down at Major Trumbo. I remember I hurt everywhere and wondered if he’d ruptured one of my kidneys. I looked at Mom. She was rubbing her throat where he’d choked her.” He slumped forward, hugging himself, as if he’d simply run out of words.

  Pippa leaned toward him. “What happened next, Ronald?”

  He raised his face, pale, drawn. “It was Marsia’s idea to bury him and throw in the knife. She said me and Mom would go to prison otherwise, with that stab wound in his back, so we all agreed. It was awful, digging that hole until it was big enough, deep enough, to dump him in, then shoveling the dirt over him. His eyes were open. I still see his face, see him staring up at me as the dirt covered him. But I was glad.” He heaved out a breath. “The next day, I drove into Bushkill to a funeral home and bought an urn. Mom filled it with six pounds of ashes from the fireplace.”

  Mrs. Trumbo took her son’s hand. “Ron was trying to stop the major from killing me. My boy’s no murderer.”

  Wilde said, “Why didn’t you simply go to the local authorities and tell them what happened? He was a wifebeater, nearly killed both of you. It was self-defense. Even after you buried the body. With all the shock, fear, the confusion, there would have been three of you telling the same story.”

  “You don’t understand,” Ronald said. “The next morning we couldn’t believe what we’d done, but still, there was no way to change it. We talked about going to the police in Bushkill, telling them the truth. But Marsia didn’t let that happen. She looked from me to Mom, and she smiled her beautiful smile and said, calm as a judge, ‘I’m involved now, and no way are you going to the police. If you two martyrs turn yourselves in, I’ll tell the cops you murdered your stepfather in cold blood, with no provocation except his yelling at your precious mother. Good, I can see you’re starting to actually believe me.’

  “She told us we were going to let the old bastard stay buried and go about our business.”

  Mrs. Trumbo said, “I’ll never forget that smile. I’d always thought her charming, clever. I would never have guessed she was capable of that.”

  Ronald said, “She told us she was leaving, taking my car, but before she drove off, she said, ‘Don’t forget, I know where the body’s buried.’ She laughed, pulled out her cell phone. ‘Did you wonder why I didn’t help you dig his grave? I had to step back so I could record everything.’ She waved the cell phone at us. ‘Ronnie,’ she said, ‘you’re a fine artist and not a bad lover, but we’re over.’ And she gave me that beautiful smile again. ‘I’ll be sending you the video, Ronnie, and you and your mom will be paying me a little something from here on out. Otherwise I’ll turn you both in. I’m not kidding, you know.’ ”

  Mrs. Trumbo said, “I’ll never forget what she said to me and the contempt in her voice. ‘Mrs. Trumbo, you weren’t very smart, were you, to marry that sorry excuse for a man? Sorry you’re not done paying for it.’ ” Mrs. Trumbo sighed. “It made it worse because she was right.”

  Ronald said, “And she drove off. She left my car in Baltimore, at my apartment. She never asked for more than we could afford, only a couple hundred a month. I saw her occasionally, saw her exhibits, followed her career. Mom and I have lived knowing she could contact us or turn us in at any time. When she was accused of trying to kill that rich old lady in Washington, we didn’t know what it meant for us, until last month when she sent us instructions, reminded us of what would happen if we didn’t do exactly what she said. She had me change that puzzle of Major Trumbo and send it in three separate red boxes to Agent Savich. She did it to scare the crap out of us, to torture us, to reinforce to us that she held all the cards. She wanted Agent Savich to trace the puzzle here to St. Lumis. She thought he wouldn’t be able to resist, that he’d come here and check it out himself. But she was wrong. You came, Agent Cinelli. She insisted we had to get him out of Washington, get him here, somehow, so his family would be left alone at home.”

  Mrs. Trumbo said, “Ronald couldn’t bring himself to burn the house down, so he set fire only to the kitchen, to give them time to get out. Marsia was furious because he hadn’t followed her instructions. She’s never going to stop trying to hurt this Agent Savich.”

  Ronald raised dead eyes to Pippa’s face. “What’s going to happen to us, Agent Cinelli?”

  Pippa leaned forward. It was tough to keep her voice calm. “I can almost understand why you did what you did at the cabin, with both of you in shock, in pain from his attacking you. But tell me this: If Marsia hadn’t been there, what would you have done?”

  Mother and son stared at her. Mrs. Trumbo said finally, “Do you know, it’s hard to be sure now. I’d like to think we would have gone to the police, but I really don’t know.”

  Ronald said, “We were so scared, I mean, there he was, lying dead, and I’d stabbed him in the back. And I remember I kept thinking he was a monster, and I hadn’t even known what he was doing to my mother.” He raised his chin, and his voice grew stronger, more certain. “I’d have thought about throwing him in the woods and letting the animals have him.”

  Mrs. Trumbo clasped his hand hard. “I can only hope, looking back, we would have come to our senses and gone to the police. I hope we would have.”

  Pippa looked from one to the other. “You’ll have to show us where you buried the major, and there will be consequences. But when everything is explained to the district attorney, I think you’ll be cleared of killing him. Of course, there’ll be other charges, Ronald, some of them serious, but you’ll get a lighter sentence than you might expect. Do you know why?”

  They stared back at her, the beginnings of hope in their eyes. “You’re going to help us put Marsia Gay away.” Pippa held out her hand. “Give me your cell phone, Ronald. I believe those texts you have will be a big nail in Marsia’s coffin. Do you still have that video?”

  59

  MANVERS HOUSE

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  Rebekah, Beck, and Rich Manvers sat at the dining room table, a fresh bouquet of red roses in the middle and the warm glow of the art deco chandelier overhead.

  “Well, you’ve certainly become famous, Rebekah, or maybe I should say infamous,” Beck said as he chewed on the excellent prime rib provided by the Manvers’s cook, Mrs. Bybee. “My new girlfriend won’t shut up about your adventure last Thursday. She wants all the gory details, straight from the horse’s mouth, well, the mare’s mouth. I told her maybe my dad wanted you out of the way and picked a dramatic way to do it.” He grinned at Rebekah and his father, forked down another healthy bite of prime rib. “Or maybe you and Dad put it all on together to garner sympathy votes for his next election.”

  “Not funny, Beck,” Rich said.

  Rebekah, her mind miles away, looked at Beck, cocked her head, and said, “Would you like some salad? It’s Mrs. Bybee’s special Caesar.”

  Beck arched a dark brow at her, exactly like his father, and laughed. “Sorry, just trying to lighten things up, get us in the Thanksgiving spirit, but you’re off on another planet. You want to talk about my new girlfriend? Her name’s Paula Land, and she’s younger than you are, Rebekah, all of twenty-two, fresh out of Princeton. Don’t worry, Dad, she wouldn’t be a millstone around your neck if I married her; her family has more money than God. Oil wells and
refineries.”

  Rebekah wouldn’t have cared if Paula were ninety-six. “That’s nice, Beck.”

  Beck gave up trying to get a rise out of Rebekah, turned to his father. “Seriously, Dad, about last Thursday. The FBI and Metro cops still have their thumbs in their mouths? Still no leads?”

  Rich said, “Nothing definite, no. The two men who attacked Rebekah didn’t leave a trail, at least not one easily discovered.”

  Beck patted his mouth with his napkin and sat back in his chair. “At least that FBI agent, Savich, stopped them, so he was good for something. And that other agent, Hammersmith, who’s been guarding her, Kit called him a rare hunk, a girl’s fantasy. So what do you think of him, Dad? Think you could be in trouble?”

  Rich took a bite of his Caesar salad and shook his head at his son. “Don’t you ever get tired of trying to stir the pot? Fact is, I’m very relieved Agent Hammersmith is here to keep her safe. And don’t you have to get to your date, Beck? To Paula? You don’t want to be late.”

  Beck grinned at him again. “I promised her I’d find out as much as I could, but I see you’re not going to tell me much of anything, so I’ll have to make something up.”

  Rich sighed and took a sip of his cabernet.

  “Rebekah, do you want to give me some juicy details? For Paula?”

  Rebekah brought her attention to her stepson’s face. “Not in this lifetime, Beck, sorry.”

  “You guys aren’t any fun,” Beck said, took a last bite of prime rib, tossed his napkin on the table, and stood. He looked at his father as he walked around the table to where Rebekah sat. He leaned down and kissed her hard and fast on the mouth. “Bye, Stepmom. Dad.” He left the dining room, whistling.

  Rebekah called out after him, “You need to work on your technique, Beck, if you’re hoping for a second date.”